11
comments:

Za
said...

Hey Chris, long time no see.

I was inspired by a recent comment on the 99% movement (and the general crappy way your media covers things [link: http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltnlx0v5Ei1qhwm08o1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1319697566&Signature=2s9eTpWBxdyV4KFHtPFw/gY6mhU%3D ]) to check in on you.

How's things? Life treating you well?

I notice you're not happy with the Obama side of things. I'd be interested to hear what in particular needed to be done better and how you think a Republican government would have gone. It's been a while since we've had those kinds of talks.

Damn, it has been a while. Things are pretty much as vanilla as they always were. I'm a boring person who leads a boring life.

I, for the most part, walked away from politics a few years ago. It got to be such a draining hassle and I was making myself sick with it. It got to a point where I just couldn't do it anymore. I haven't debated (argued) politics in almost two years and it's been pretty nice.

I can completely understand that. My time at university kinda left me feeling a bit deadened, for lack of a better way to describe it. That's most of why I dropped off the face of things.

Mayhap though, I could draw you into a conversation about what you'd like to see achieved? I'd be interested to see how your views have changed, given the pretty awful past few years everyone's been having.

Dude, you're harshing my serenity :) My views haven't changed all that much. All I want is for the government just leave us alone. Not to tell us we HAVE to have health insurance if we don't want it. Not to dictate how much salt or sugar we can have or whether or not we can smoke.

That's kind of considered a basic human right in most other first world countries, given that being sick enough to warrant needing it generally means being sick enough to affect your income before you're even paying medical expenses.

Any nuances to the "leave us alone" vibe? Anything government should be proactive on?

Technically it is "optional" but if we don't have coverage by 2014, when this is supposed to take effect, we'll be fined and if we don't pay the fine we could go to jail. So it's either pay a fine and possibly go to jail or have health insurance we might not want, or for some, need. Doesn't sound like much of a choice to me.

You realise you go to jail if you don't pay your taxes already, right?

I'm led to understand that the tax levy is also pretty small - $95 or 1% of your income, whichever is higher (with exemptions for low income earners).

I'm not sure if you know though, but the lowest income earners are also the people most prone to diseases, so the system as it is currently doesn't work - since it aims healthcare at people who are well off enough to afford it.

The overall cost of healthcare drops the more people who have it, so the current system not only avoids providing it to the poor who need it most, but also means people who are well off are paying more than they need to.

And even if you don't "need" it, getting refunds on all your doctors' visits is kinda cool.

Plus, surely maintaining a standard of health falls under the government's mandate to maintain the right to life, liberty and/or happiness? I just don't see a reason to not want healthcare since it makes life easier.

Bottom line, if I don't want health insurance I shouldn't be made, either by force or coercion, to do so by the government.

And I have to end this conversation because I'm starting to fall back to that state of mind that I had to leave. Arguing politics caused me far too much stress and I can't do that again. It's just not good for me. I hope you understand.